by Michele Chabin , Special for USA TODAY

by Michele Chabin , Special for USA TODAY

JERUSALEM â?? At a time when some of her fellow entertainers are bending to demands by pro-Palestinian activists to boycott Israel, Barbra Streisand â?? on a week-long visit here â?? proudly touted her Jewish roots and love of Israel.

"This is very special for me," Streisand told a sold-out crowd at Tel Aviv-Jaffa's Bloomfield Stadium on Thursday. "I've sung in many countries, on many stages, but this is the first time I'm doing a concert in Israel. It is a very deep down feeling."

Streisand wowed Israelis not only with her voice in her first-ever concert here but with her unabashed trumpeting of Jewish identity as well. Rather than remain in a hotel in between performances, she has been out seeing the sites, even making an unannounced visit to the Western Wall.

It has been a family affair as well. Streisand arrived at Ben-Gurion Airport as the last stop on a five-city tour with her husband James Brolin, her son Jason Gould and her sister, Rosyln Kind.

She said the visit represented "a connection to my roots, to my heritage, to my family.

"This is quite a remarkable week for me."

A movement under the name Boycott/Divestment/Sanctions (BDS) has been pressuring artists, entertainers and academics not to go to Israel or even attend conferences where Israelis are participating as a show if solidarity with Palestinians.

The movement was begun by Palestinians and joined by European leftists and academics to cripple Israel's economy and international standing to get it to bend to the position of Palestinians on political and security matters.

The writer Alice Walker recently banned an Israeli publisher from printing her novel, "The Color Purple," in Hebrew. Musician Alicia Keyes was asked not to perform here this summer but like Streisand she intends to play on. Entertainers who have cancelled Israeli appearances include Elvis Costello, Coldplay and Snoop Dogg.

Streisand did not say whether she was contacted by the BDS movement. But she proudly talked of her Jewish roots,and the inspiration she drew from the Jewish homeland.

The concert became a retrospective of Streisand's life and career, origins for which are in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, a onetime Jewish enclave.

Her parents were Jewish - her father's family emigrated from Poland, her mother's from Russia. She went to public schools in Brooklyn but reminded her audience that she received three years of Orthodox Jewish education in a yeshiva.

Prior to performing a song from the film Yentl â?? about a woman who dresses up as a man to be permitted to study in a male-only Torah academy after her father, her teacher, dies â?? Streisand recalled that her own father, who died when she was not yet 2 years old, "was also teacher and a scholar."

Had he lived "I knew he would have taught me," she said of Emanuel Streisand, a high school teacher who died from complications after a seizure.

The two-and-a-half hour concert was full of anecdotes and impromptu observations that delighted the mostly middle-aged concert-goers, some of who paid more than $900 for a ticket. Though not religiously observant, Streisand made it clear that Jewish values fuel at least some of her activist endeavors.

Speaking about why she founded the Barbra Streisand Women's Heart Center at Cedars-Sinai Institute in Los Angeles, she mentioned "the Jewish people's contribution to medicine, from Jonas Salk," who developed the first successful vaccine against polio "to chicken soup."

Concert-goers were struck by her personal connection she expressed with the Jewish people both onstage and in her travels off-stage.

Bridgitte Raven, a "huge" Streisand fan and aspiring singer in Tel Aviv, said she "felt as if you could just call her up and say, 'Hey Babs, let's go get a falafel.' My entire week was heightened as I watched her visit places I've been, speaking about issues that I value."

Ever the newsmaker, Streisand made headlines when received an honorary degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and called for an end to discrimination against women in Israel. Ultra-Orthodox Jews have always frowned upon the mixing of the sexes in public places and are demanding more gender segregation.

"I realize it's not easy to fully grasp the dynamics of what happens in a foreign land. Israel and the United States have much in common: Two great and noble countries, each with problems of course, but always striving to shine as a beacon of hope," Streisand said.

"So it's distressing to hear about women in Israel being forced to sit at the back of a bus, or when we hear about Women of the Wall," a feminist prayer group, "having metal chairs hurled at them when they attempt to peacefully pray, or when women are banned from singing in public ceremonies."

Anat Hoffman, chairwoman of the Women of the Wall, said she was "delighted beyond words" that a well-known female Jewish voice like Streisand spoke about their issue.

The singer didn't directly enter the Israeli-Palestinian debate but spoke about the "Jewish emphasis on learning, because learning is the opposite of hate and bigotry."

Just before performing Hativka (The Hope), Israel's national anthem, Streisand said she was singing it "with the continued hope that we may learn from with yesterday, live for today, and continue to strive for a better tomorrow."

Allison Kaplan Sommer, who writes a culture blog for the Haaretz newspaper, told USA TODAY that Israelis who have long admired the entertainer's talent this week gained an appreciation for the person behind the star.

"She is not only proudly Jewish, but she is actually knowledgeable when it comes to Jewish culture and heritage, Sommer said. "And I think Israelis identify with her chutzpah - her willingness to be herself even when it makes her unpopular."